Cake's Guide to Writing Maximum Ride Fanfiction
by CakeIsAGoodFriend
Summary: Some people have been asking me about how to write Maximum Ride fanfiction, and now, I've finally decided to tell you. Just some nice, little ways to make your story not a complete disaster. ;)
1. Chapter 1

**Tis I! Your dearest Cake, here. Recently, I've gotten more than a few PMs asking for help or advice for people doing their first MR fanfic. Now, I know I'm nowhere near perfect, but I just thought I'd do the best I could to help.**

**Topic #1: Grammar**

To me, this is one of the things most needed to be addressed. Who doesn't get annoyed reading a fic where the grammar is awful?

me and him went to the mall and then he asked if i wanted ice cream "yes" i said because I was hungry.

That isn't a sentence.

_This_ is a sentence:

As I arrived at the mall with him, he asked me if I wanted any ice cream. I smiled and licked my lips hungrily. "Yes." I said.

People need to learn to their grammar skills! Some common mistakes I see are as follows: Capitalization, punctuation, quotation usage, and just plain lack of sentence structure. Now, I am not as my friend calls herself, "A grammar Nazi". I know I make grammatical errors every now and then, but that does not mean I go around making a story that is illegible because of all the grammar errors.

The ONLY exception to this grammar section is if you A) are dyslexic or B) English is your second language. Then I'll forgive you.

**Topic #2: Summaries**

Although many people don't think so, summaries are actually very important. Summaries, for me at least, are the deciding factor if I'm going to read your story or not. Saying, "Sorry, I suck at summaries." And putting that INTO your summary doesn't make me want to read your work. For all I know, your writing could be stellar and I would never read it because your summary was bad.

Summary suggestions on my part are to make sure you clearly address the prompt of the story.

Max is new in town. She never sticks in one place long. She has a secret. Fang is the bad boy. He wants to find out Max's secret.

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't want to read that.

Maximum Ride **(Whatever you want to name her. Maxine Martinez, Max Batchelder, etc.) **is a new face in town. Moving from place to place, she is never in one place long. That's the consequence of one constant factor in her life: Her secret. Deep, dark, and depressing as she may seem, Fang, the local 'bad boy', will stop at nothing to figure her out.

You tell me which story you'd rather read. If you pick the first one, I guess I'm just weird, then.

**Topic #3: Slow vs. Fast Fax**

I personally find this as a very important topic.

To be quite honest, I love myself some nice, quick Fax. IF it is done right. Pulling of fast Fax is a hard feat in itself. If you can get Fax within the first 5 chapters, I applaud you. The way it's easiest to get fast Fax into your story, is if Max and Fang already have a background of best friends or something of the like. I cannot stand the people who think that they can get away with Max and Fang knowing each other for 5 minutes and then making out. I'm pretty sure the only way this would happen is if Fang was an absolute pervert and Max is hardcore drunk. Or a prostitute. Your choice. I do understand a general mutual attraction they share at first meeting. One last word to the wise on fast Fax: Please don't go into overdrive with the 'hormonal Max and Fang' thing. I get it for a few little laughs, but Fang pining over Max the entire chapter is not an enjoyable read.

Slow Fax, in my opinion, is much more realistic and is easier to write. With slow Fax, Max and Fang have time to bond and actually be friends. They also have time to figure out their feelings and discover just how whipped they are. :D. My only recommendation with slow Fax is not to make it too slow or else you may bore the readers to death. I know I might've done that in a few of my stories… ^.^

**Topic #4: Max**

Max can be a troubling person to write for, trust me, I know. Here is some guidance on that:

Tough Max

Max can be very tough and very hard, but she is breakable. You can't have her always be way tough. If in your story she has a hard background, it's okay to make her very tough and guarded. That doesn't mean she's completely emotionless. I know that sometimes people feel like, 'Oh no, I can't make Max cry! She's invincible!', but she isn't. If in your story, Max breaking down is what it takes to make the plot move along, so be it. Don't be afraid to have Max shatter a little bit.

Soft Max

I don't care if you won't admit it, Max has a tender side. When writing for this, you want to use the kind of tone JP uses in the books when Max is addressing Angel. Not overemotional, but soft.

**Topic #5: Fang**

My Fang rant wont be very long, because in my opinion, you can do whatever you want with Fang. In the books, pretty much the only sure thing from Fang is he loves and cares about Max. The rest, you can pretty much make up about his personality. You could make him rich, stuck-up, caring, hopelessly romantic or whatever you want to so that the plot flows.

Pretty much my only advice on Fang is that you don't overplay the emotionless rock card. If writing in Fang's POV, I don't want to hear the thoughts of an emotionless rock. I can just picture it:

We ate lunch. We played kickball. We went home. We kissed.

*Shudders* That is just wrong.

**Topic #6: Lemons**

Just… no. The only thing I can say is that if you're going to put one in, please add a warning and make sure that the story is at least rated T, if not M. The warning is a necessity, though. Not everyone wants to hear the dirty things your mind comes up with.

**Topic #7: The Curse of the OC**

The Curse of the OC is kind of a double meaning. The first meaning is that you have an OC in your story and you wayyy overplay them. When your OC has more of a role in the story than your main character, then you know you're doing something wrong.

The second meaning is just awful. It is a rare case, but it does happen. Now, this is the case where you are reading a _Fax_ story, and then Fang 'falls in love with' an OC. The OC then outshines Max at everything. Basically, this means your OC is a complete Mary-Sue and that maybe you should think of changing the summary from "Fax" to Fang/OC. Not hating on Fang/OC stories, but I just don't read them. I really don't read anything but Fax, though.

**Well, that was all my advice. To those who asked, hope this helps. Just restating here that these are some of my opinions and suggestions to make stories better, so if you disagree with anything it's completely fine. **

**This is most likely just a one-shot writing guide. Maybe I'll post another chapter if I find something irking me about MR fanfiction. **

**Oh, and lastly, in the comments, tell me something that irks YOU about MR fanfiction. Who knows, we could have something in common. ;)**

**~Cake.**


	2. Chapter 2

**I was very happy with the reaction to my guide. :) Some people wanted some more advice, so here is the next segment of Cake's Guide to Writing Maximum Ride Fanfiction.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Maximum Ride.**

**Topic #8: Antagonists**

Now, we all know what I'm talking about here. Antagonists. More commonly known as people that disrupt the Fax. In even more detail, common examples are Sam, Lissa, Brigid, Dylan, and Maya.

Now, here's the thing with antagonists: You can't make them too terrible. Do you know anyone that would go out of his or her way to destroy your whole life? If you do, then… err… that's a bit unusual. Even though we all absolutely love writing these antagonists as awful, awful people, they have to have at least a little bit of good quality. I mean, in the books, Lissa was only there for about half a page. There must've been something good about her that drew Fang in.

**Topic #9: Plot**

Your story has to have some kind of a plot. That's given. How I like to do things is having one main plot and then adding sub plots.

To give an example, I can use my story Reputations. The main story was Max moving to a new town and meeting/falling in love with Fang. To name a few subplots, there were people like Cara, Dylan, and Tess interrupting the Fax, and there was Max's stalker coming in. These subplots helped with main plot because they made Max and Fang realize they loved each. That's basically what I mean by main plots and subplots.

**Topic #10: Pairings **

Now, whom you pair up is really none of my business at all. Pair whomever you want really, _as long_ as it's plausible.

By plausible, I mean it could happen. Try to stay away from pedophile-ish things. Examples: Fang/Angel, Iggy/Angel, Max/Gazzy, Dylan/Angel, etc. If you alter the ages so that the people are closer in age, then it would probably be okay. But no one really wants to read about pedophiles. :/

**Topic #11: Flames/Reviews**

Though these aren't typically addressed, I thought I should probably talk about flames and reviews. Flames are nasty things. Insults, in a way. There are good flames and bad flames. Good flames, no matter how judgmental are actually meant to help you. They're meant to be constructive criticism. Bad flames are just plain old insults that they shout at you. The point is not to let the flames and harsh reviews get to you. You don't want to know how many good stories I've read that were discontinued just because they couldn't handle the harsh reviews.

In fact, my friend got a review calling her some pretty awful names and swears. As far as I know, she's still writing the story. I, myself, have gotten some mean reviews, too, but you really just can't let them bug you.

**Topic #12: Descriptions**

Everyone thinks describing the characters is easy, right? Wroooong. I've learned with experience that descriptions aren't as easy as everyone thinks. I used to do things along the lines of this:

_My name's Maximum Ride. I'm quite average, actually. I've got dirty blonde hair down to my shoulders, muddy brown eyes, and an athletic build._

Now, that's okay, but it is a bit boring to read. The trick with writing is to somehow just sneak descriptions in there without readers noticing. Case and point:

_Frowning, I tried to brush back the stray piece of dirty blond hair._

_The reflection of my mud brown eyes stared back at me._

See what I mean? Just sneak it in there.

**Well, that's all I have for now. When I get more things to guide you people on, I'll update. Put your Maximum Ride Fanfiction pet peeves in a review!**

**~Cake.**


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